re: Odd history or little known facts about your hometown.

My current home town is the official site of the first air mail (in 1859). Advertised at the time as going (by balloon) from Lafayette, IN to New York, the balloon actually made it just about to Crawfordsville, 30 miles away, then the mail went by train. They still count it though.

Crawfordsville was, of course, where General Lew Wallace lived when he wrote Ben-Hur.